Utilities

 15/3/11

Today was an absolutely lovely day.  The Luthers took us to Busua Beach, about an hour from here.  Actually, the road was in good condition, although there were many broken down vehicles along the side.  In town here the roads are terrible – partially paved with large potholes.  The driving isn’t too crazy, but I definitely prefer to wear a seat belt.

Anyhow, about the beach.  It was very beautifully kept with flowers and coconut trees.  The beach itself has no litter or broken bottles or anything like that. On shore, beyond the perimeter of the resort, trash is scattered all over, but what you see from the shoreline is an island in the distance with two lone palm trees.  There are fishing boats ashore, but it is considered bad luck to fish on Tuesdays, so none of them were out in the water today.  There are showers to rinse after being in the ocean, swimming pools at the resort, and very nice bathroom and changing facilities.  Very clean, and the landscaping is kept well.   One does not have to be a guest at the resort to use these grounds, but if you use the swimming pools you pay 4 cedis, or about $2.50, for adults and 2 cedis for children.  The Consfords were supposed to come, but their vehicle is once more broken down, so they sent their two boys with us.  All the children played in the little pool, and we had lunch by the playground under the coconut trees.  The resort staff was coming to the trees, knocking down a coconut, opening it and drinking the milk.  That’s some kind of lunch break!

Upon returning to the house we realized that the water to this area has been shut off for some reason.  Our worker, Isaac, went to our neighbors to ask if they had water since we weren’t sure that the problem wasn’t with our polytank valve.  They, too, are without water.  Charlie looked inside the tank and told us we have about a day’s worth of water left.  Praise the Lord, there is a well on the property, and Isaac filled our bathtub with several gallons of water from the well.  We will dip from this to flush toilets, take showers, and get water for filtering.  They say the rainy season begins in April or May, although I’m not sure that the problem with the city water has anything to do with a lack of water to this area.

17/3/11

Tuesday night, just before midnight, the electricity went off again, and again just the power on the one meter.  Thankfully, the fridge remains on the other outlet.  We really couldn’t figure out what the problem was until I looked at the receipt and saw a tariff for 40 cedi, and that only 10 cedi credit had been added to our meter.  Charlie explained it to me, and basically the water company increased the rate on paper last year, then found out in reality the rate increase was never put into effect.  When the company realized the error they retro charged everyone for that increase that didn’t happen, and they divvied it up over three payments.  We were billed for our landlords power usage from last year and were not given the credit we paid.  Finally it made sense!  PTL, Charlie took us down, we put another 100 cedi on the meter and voila!  We have electricity!  Happy day!

The awesome thing is that in the afternoon a big, black storm cloud came up, and while it didn’t rain here we could smell the rain, and the temps dropped 3 degrees Celsius.  Believe it or not, 86F is much more comfortable than 92F.  All night the temps stayed lower, and I even had goose bumps sitting under the ceiling fan in church.  I bought a stand fan to replace the A/C because we simply can’t afford to run it.  

We are having to pay for 2 households right now.  In order to keep the house (where all are belongings are stored) in Ivory Coast, we have to pay for that in addition to this house.  There is an Ivorian staying in the house to watch it and feed the dog.  That’s some house sitting job! If a missionary wants their house when they return to the field from furlough, they have to pay for it during the time their gone. 

We remain without city water, but our worker carried several buckets of water to the washer last night so we could do a load of laundry.  His name is Isaac, he doesn’t speak too much English, and he’s very quiet.  Maybe those 2 facts are related.  J  Unlike any of the other workers I’ve met, he is always on time or early, yet he doesn’t wear a watch.  He pays a lot of attention to detail, and takes great care that everything looks nice when he’s finished.  There isn’t a lawn mower here so he takes a machete and cuts the grass that way.  He always cleans up the mangos and coconuts that fall, he sweeps outside and sweeps and mops inside.  He does go to church in his village, but I could not understand the name or type of church he said.  I’ve been told he has a black belt in tae kwon do, and that he gives lessons. 

PTL, Kristine seems to like to cook.  I won’t starve after all!  I’m always glad to do the dishes if someone will feed me.  She made a teriyaki-type chicken last night with brown rice and baby carrots.  Wow!  That was good.  Tonight we’re having some kind of Mexican style chicken, with tortillas and guacamole.  She brought a tortilla maker because there aren’t a lot of tortillas in West Africa.  Although the funny thing is, the chicken is Tyson brand.  Who would have thunk there’d be Tyson chicken in Ghana!